


Bouncer, Baker, Soldier, Chef: The Many Hats of Mr. Butler

by PhryneFicathon, QuailiTea



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-02-28 05:43:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13264914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhryneFicathon/pseuds/PhryneFicathon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuailiTea/pseuds/QuailiTea
Summary: Set between Murder Under the Mistletoe and Death Defying Feats, we follow Mr. Butler through a trying day, while he keeps Miss Fisher’s household running smoothly despite it all.Prompt: ‘What Mr. Butler thought he was getting into when he took the job, vs he thinks now’ with a dash of the image and ‘The butler did it’





	Bouncer, Baker, Soldier, Chef: The Many Hats of Mr. Butler

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justsare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsare/gifts).



He had given Misters Johnson and Yates a fine supper that first night as a thank-you for their warning. Mr. Butler had been in service nearly his whole life, less his wartime experiences, but had they not thought to enlighten him as to the nature of his new employer, he still wonders sometimes if his composure might have suffered a fatal blow on introduction to Miss Fisher.

Now, many months into his employment, he had come to understand her a little better than her original characterization as a woman of means, but no compunction, verve, but no manners. In fact, he found her scrupulous in many of her habits, which appealed to the part of his soul which would always be a bit starched and pressed, no matter how often he found anarchists and circus folk at the dinner table or underthings in the garden. But today, today might be a bit of a trial, Mr. Butler felt. In the pantry, he gave his inventory list a last, patently unnecessary check, and stiffened his resolve. He had faced German bullets and French chefs wielding carving knives; his own employer’s guests could hardly be more difficult than that. But as he made his way toward the back staircase, he became aware of a set of footsteps descending tentatively, and he quietly melted back into the pantry to allow Miss Fisher’s visitor the courtesy of disappearing through the kitchen door apparently unobserved.

The young man, however, did not seem to have the same level of respect for Mr. Butler’s establishment as Mr. Butler did for him. There was a crash from the back door which would have either been a wash pitcher or a window, neither of which should have been in danger from a reasonably sober man leaving a house at an early, but not impossible, hour. He glided in, all senses on alert. The young man in question had tangled himself in a kitchen chair somehow, and was struggling feebly to extract his feet. “Something I can help you with, sir?” Nobody, save perhaps his sister, would have heard the miniscule hesitation in his voice before the honorific, but it was reluctantly given all the same. The young man had arrived boisterously last night, made an unconscionable mess in the lounge while Miss Fisher had been pouring him a drink, and then crumbled into a soggy pile of cheaply fashionable clothing in the lavatory. Judging by the man’s current goggling expression, looking at him like he was some sort of advanced calculus problem rather than a butler, he had not yet fully recovered.

“I… I’m afraid…” the hungover man began. He fumbled with the chair legs feebly, attempting to extricate his foot while avoiding the shards of the water pitcher. “I think somebody broke this,” he said, holding up the ceramic handle with a bewildered look on his face. “It wasn’t me though. I would have said something.”

“Of course, sir.” The young man was dropping like a stone in Mr. Butler’s regard. He now could see exactly why the Miss had both been initially intrigued and so quickly relegated her potential dalliance to the guest bedroom, and not the good one either. “Here you are, Mr. Murray,” he said, offering his hand to the man.

“I’m Flip,” the man said, even as he took Mr. Butler’s offer of help extracting himself from the chair. “Jus’ Flip. Mr. Murray is my f- father,” he spat. Mr. B refrained from comment. He had been right. It was going to be a trying day.

A few more moments were all that were necessary to get Mr. Murray the younger put to rights, with a headache powder dissolved into, regrettably, another glass of beer, and left him groaning with his head down on the kitchen table. By Tobias’ calculations, which were very rarely incorrect, he had another fourteen to sixteen minutes before Miss Fisher awoke, and approximately seven minutes after that would be when she would be in need of her tray. The noise had not been loud enough to awaken her, and Mr. Murray had not been in the bedroom to rouse her as he staggered down the stairs.

Mr. Butler’s timing was one of those things that he’d always regarded as a peculiar sort of trait. It wasn’t just that he had a strong sense of minutes and hours the way a musician had an ear for the tuning of his instrument. It was also, he mused to himself as he began setting out breakfast dishes in a careful array along the countertop, a strange blessing. Whether it was Mrs. Butler prodding him to remember to close the windows not thirty minutes before a squall rolled up or pluck the tomatoes early to beat an unsuspected frost, or an angel, as Dorothy would attribute it, he had always had a catlike knack for landing precisely where he meant to, and avoiding calamities that he had no way of foreseeing. Which wasn’t to say there weren’t trials. Mr. Murray was an excellent example of that.

As Mr. Butler turned around to add some ham to the frying pan, there was a quiet ripping noise from behind him, followed by the screeching of the kitchen chair as Mr. Murray attempted to leave the table, and yet again tangled himself, somehow, between the table leg and the chair. It looked like he had caught the hem of his trousers under the chair and torn it. “Sir?”

“Look, you seem like an ok fella for a penguin, but I gotta go.” The young man’s eyes were now focusing somewhat, but his drunken nonchalance had been replaced by a peculiar anxiety. Mr. Butler’s mind began to tick over, wondering if perhaps the disreputable Mr. Murray might have stolen something from the spare bedroom. Well, there was a simple way to discover that.

“Of course, sir, shall I fetch your coat?” That would give him the chance to inspect the room as well as let Mr. Murray, should he have secreted something on his person, fetch it out again.

“Nah, no coat,” Murray mumbled. “Did I bring a coat?” He wrangled feebly with his pant leg again, gave up, and eyed the ham steak, which had approximately six more minutes on it by Mr. Butler’s calculation.

“You did, sir.” Internally, he sighed at himself. That ‘Sir’ was growing more and more noticeably hesitant. No help for it. He glided out of the kitchen and up the back stairs. Sure enough, the spare bedroom was missing an enameled decorative snuffbox, and the gold embellishment on the dressing screen had been scratched off with a knife. Mr. Murray had likely used his own knife to scratch away the gold leaf into the snuffbox and had forgotten his coat, which was still hanging on the clothes tree, in his excitement to get away. Mr. Butler tucked the coat neatly under his arm, and as he made his way down the stairs, discreetly checked the pockets. An interesting bill presented itself, and Mr. Butler made a mental note of the contents before returning it to the pocket. Mr. Murray had finally freed himself from his imprisonment, and was poking at the ham steak idly with a knife that, to Mr. Butler’s quick eye, had a flicker of gold on it.

“You must be a helluva cook for a penguin,” he said. “Miss Fisher is a classy lady. S’ why I gotta go. I messed up. And I’m gonna catch it if they found out I was here for the night.” Deftly, Mr. Butler swung the man’s coat around his shoulders.

“Very well, and any message for Miss Fisher?”

“Nah, nah,” he said. “It was fun, but we’d probably better not see each other again.” With that, he wobbled his way through the door, leaving Mr. Butler with a caramelizing ham steak that just needed to be flipped, an appalling smell of vomit to remove from near the back door, and a snuffbox full of gold shavings that could be used to repair the dressing screen in the spare bedroom. As he organized breakfast for Miss Fisher, Tobias allowed himself a small smile. The man hadn’t noticed his pocket being picked at all.

When he carried the tray up to Miss Fisher, she was already in her dressing gown, discussing the details of the morning’s mail with Dorothy. “Good morning, Miss,” he intoned. “I’m afraid Mr. Murray has already seen himself out.” She looked up, unsurprised, but with a flicker of irritation that he would have been so rude.

“Did he leave a message of any sort?”

“I’m afraid not Miss,” Mr. Butler replied. “But I believe he was headed to a pawn shop on Darrow Street, based on his conversation.” Which wasn’t precisely true, the man hadn’t said it, but the combination of petty pilfering, the address of the receipt in the man’s pocket, and the way he had lurked around the gate when he thought Mr. Butler was finished cleaning up the mess suggested a significant financial desperation. Prior to being employed by Miss Fisher, that thought would have been a nothing, to never be mentioned, but her profession had led to an adaptation of his own, to supply her with hints that he had gleaned from his own extensive experience.

“Darrow Street?” Her eyes lit with intrigue. “Dot, I think I know what our next move is!” Mr. Butler retreated down the stairs as the two women planned their attack on the pawn shop. It wasn’t exactly how he’d pictured his life in service, but on balance, given the choice between an extravagant, luxurious dandy who gave his butler absolute domain of the household and all its inhabitants, and an extravagant, luxurious lady detective with her fingers on the pulses of every current of the city, as well as on some of the dandies, well, he would happily pick the latter these days. Humming, Tobias carried the dressing screen down to the back door. He knew the repairman for the furniture dealer would be passing by in nine minutes, and he wanted to get a quote on replacing the gold leaf.

\---

When the Inspector came by late that afternoon, as Mr. Butler wagered he might, there was a tray ready on the side table, with a neat array of sandwiches and biscuits. Tobias had noticed Robinson favored mustard-pickle, but variety was also welcome to a man who did the majority of eating from carts. As he took the man’s hat and coat, he saw the hungry dart to his eyes, and made a mental note to replace the tray after a polite interval. Clearly, Miss Fisher had run the Inspector ragged today. There was quiet conversation from behind the door, followed by an indelicate pause. Tobias had learned quickly not to interrupt those. Being Miss Fisher’s staff had required an adaptation in that area as well. Normally, a butler should be an ever-present, nearly-invisible fixture. Not so in this household. But, on balance, that was acceptable as well. The interval passed, and as he heard the record being changed on the gramophone, he took his opportunity to slip in with another tray of sandwiches. He had surmised correctly in all particulars. Robinson was leaning against the fireplace, the back of his neck somewhat red, the sandwiches were mostly gone, and Miss Fisher was wearing an amused, affectionate smile that only rarely made an appearance.

“Ah, Mr. Butler,” Miss Fisher began. “Jack was just wondering if Mr. Murray said anything else before he left this morning.”

“There was a mention of a mysterious ‘they’,” he said, and the Inspector’s eyes narrowed with interest. “It sounded as if Mr. Murray was afraid that being seen affiliated with Miss Fisher might endanger his status with several people, in some way.”

“Which means, Miss Fisher,” the Inspector interjected, “that my concern is valid. You might very well be in danger.”

“Oh nonsense, Jack,” she said with an airy wave of her hand. “I have my gun, and Mr. Butler meticulous about locking up, should it come to that.”

“I would prefer it didn’t,” Robinson replied with some asperity. But he took up another sandwich, and Mr. Butler seized the opportunity to exit and go to find Dorothy. If the Inspector expected trouble, and Miss Fisher was unconcerned by it, there was a better than good chance they were going to have a visitor tonight. Dorothy did so hate to be surprised awake by such things.

\---

The Inspector’s fears turned out to be mildly justified, but only mildly. It was not some mysterious assassin who attempted to break in the side window that night, but the deeply-unlucky Mr. Murray. Not only did the silly bloke manage to tangle himself in the legs of yet another chair, this time in the dining room, but he caught a cricket bat upside the head from Tobias, a tennis racket to the nose from Dorothy, whose backhand was remarkable for someone without any training, and ultimately found himself tied to a third malevolent chair with the pink satin belt from Miss Fisher’s dressing gown, to the deep disconcertion of Constable Collins when he arrived on the scene. The Inspector was not far behind, his anxiety for his crime-solving partner concealed only when confronted with the absurdity of the whole picture.

“So, he climbed in the dining room window?” Hugh Collins was attempting to interview Dorothy while the Inspector and Miss Fisher had a tête à tête in the parlor.

“Yes, and when I hit him, he dropped the fish.”

“That would explain the smell.” Collins looked up at Tobias with a desperately bewildered expression on his face. “Why did he have a fish?”

“Fr th’ penguin!” Mr. Murray offered helpfully from the chair. He was still tied up, and Dot had thoughtlessly tied a bow in the satin belt, which did not make the picture any less absurd. “He’s a starchy one, but I thought if I brought ‘im something, he’d let me at some of that swag, so’s I cn pay my boss.”

“Is he drunk?”

“Look, I had to get m’ courage from somewhere,” Mr. Murray began, but was interrupted by the return of the Inspector and Miss Fisher, who looked like they might have been having a mutually satisfying argument while everyone else was sorting through the mess in the dining room.

“Collins,” barked the Inspector, straightening his collar unnecessarily as his jaw clenched, “Take Mr. Murray down to the station. We’ll book him in for burglary and have a chat with him about any connections he might have to the race fixers we’ve been investigating.” The constable untied Mr. Murray’s bow and led him into the night, dodging fish guts and broken glass, followed closely by the Inspector, Dorothy, and Miss Fisher, in that order. She hung back, an apologetic look on her face.

“I’m terribly sorry Mr. Butler,” she began, gesturing at the mess. “I’ll make it up to you in your next paycheck.”

“All part of the job, Miss,” he intoned, leaning the cricket bat against the wall and beginning to draw the heroic, burglar-catching chair back into formation with the others. “And if the Inspector should return tonight for a nightcap, I’ll have the glasses out for you.”

“Oh,” she said, slightly wistfully, “I don’t think he’ll be back tonight. But perhaps the day after tomorrow, I’ll invite him for dinner.” She swept out the door in a swish of satin dressing gown, and Tobias only barely heard her final sentence. “It’s about time he came around.”

Tobias allowed himself a smile. About time indeed. Yet one more thing he’d not expected to happen when he’d taken the job. But he was quite invested in helping smooth the bumps in the road for the partnership of Fisher and Robinson. It made him feel quite paternal, really. The canard of "the butler did it," was hackneyed, but it spoke very neatly about any task that Miss Fisher might put to him. Up to and including assisting in her wooing the Detective Inspector. Nobody ever suspected the butler in these sorts of things.


End file.
